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From just looking at my four-year-old daughter Tasha, I can testify that this girlchild empowerment thing has worked. And not just her, many small girls have been given wings to fly thanks to all these campaigns about the girlchild. Mommies, today, can attest to the fact that we are raising confident young women who know what they want from an early age.
Recently, at Minnie’s (Tasha’s friend) birthday party, I was amazed by what I saw. I met a bunch of Wangari Maathais, Njoki Ndung’us, Julie Gichurus and Tabitha Karanjas; I was simply amazed. Forget the girls who are timid and just know how to play with dumb dolls, I met five and six-year-olds who have an opinion on very pertinent issues.
Take for instance one Tatiana who amazed all the mamas at the party. Tatiana is only six years old and just spending a few hours with her; you can tell she may as well be the next Martha Karua of her generation. Tatty is one confident girl.
“How come our politicians are always fighting over this and that? Why can’t they just focus on paying teachers so that they don’t have to go to the streets? When I am president, I will make sure teachers are the best paid in the world,” she commented at the bash, which was during that time that teachers were on strike.
The little boys her age, at the bash, could not even match up to her level of exposure and wit. The boys looked at her blindly and chose to keep their eyes glued to the play station. These young girls are able to decipher when things are going haywire in the country just from watching politicians bickering on TV.
At that tender age, they know that teachers deserve to be paid well. And not only do the girls know some politics, they are equally familiar with environment issues.
“Why do you throw trash out of the window? Teacher Esther said if you do that, you are harming the environment,” this is the bashing my hubby and I always get when we throw plastic bottles out of the car window. And thanks to her constant bashing, we stopped our primitive behaviour.
For sure, mamas of today are raising a crop of empowered and exposed girls.
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